A Spy Among Us: Florida Telecoms Worker Acted As Agent of Chinese
A federal court has sentenced Ping Li to four years in prison for providing information to China.
Besides the prison sentence, Li was ordered to pay a fine of $250,000 with an additional three years of supervised release.
China’s Ministry of State Security
The Ministry of State Security (MSS) serves as the main civilian intelligence collection for China, according to the press release. The DOJ further said the MSS uses “cooperative contacts” based in other countries to achieve their intelligence goals, which often include obtaining information about foreign corporate or industrial matters, politicians or intelligence officers.
One of the main goals the MSS tries to achieve is to gather information about political dissidents and fugitives from China who ran to other countries.
Gave Info to Chinese Agents
Li, a U.S. citizen who immigrated from China, worked at a telecommunications company and an international information technology company. According to his own admission, he began his work as a cooperative contact of the MSS, with the task of gathering information that would be useful to the government of China. Thanks to his work, Li managed to obtain a significant amount of information regarding Chinese dissidents, pro-democracy advocates and the Falun Gong religious movement.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a religious movement that originated in China, which banned the organization in 1999.
Li Claimed Information Wasn’t Secret
Li’s defense was that the information provided was not secret.
“He made a major mistake of providing information to an individual he knew was an agent of the Chinese government,” said his attorney, Daniel Fernandez in CyberScoop interview.
Fernandez added that Li “grew up with that person back in China” and supplied that person “with innocuous information that was publicly available from Google.”
DOJ Timeline
The DOJ shared a timeline in the press release of some of Li’s actions.
In August 2012, the Chinese requested Li to provide information about practitioners of Falun Gong and pro-democracy advocates that reside in the United States. Less than a week later, Li sent the name and biographical information of an individual affiliated with Falun Gong residing in St. Petersburg, Fla.
Li also shared details about the telecoms company were he worked. In March 2015, Li provided details about branch offices after a three-week delay, while two years later, in March 2017, Li uploaded training materials that were requested by the officer and then instructed them to delete them after use.
Four years later, in May 2021, Li sent information about hacking incidents that targeted U. S. companies, and one year later, he shared details about his new employer.
Finally, in June 2022, the MSS officer sought information about a person who had fled China and went to the U.S., providing a name and suspected address. That same day, Li responded with information about the owners of that residential address.
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